Temperatures have warmed to a balmy -2 today and Sarahs pet squirrel has been taking advantage of the warm up by restocking his larder. He now comes direct to the window when looking for the huge chestnuts that Sarah buys specifically for him, once in hand (or mouth) he scoots back to the forest to hide it away before returning for more. After a few trips he takes a moment to raid the bird feeder and refuel on sunflower seeds to enable him to keep on running back and forth for a good few hours. It's actually both interesting and funny to watch him making the long trip through the snow repeatedly. I thought I would capture a few shots of the little guy for the memory banks.
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On monday this week I made the trip to Kananaskis Lakes and managed to find some nice images (as you can see in the post below this one ). Today I returned with my friend Cecil to continue my 'photoclass'.
We stopped along the way to work on standard composition while gathering up reflections along highway 40. As we arrived at lower kananaskis lake around 4:30pm the clouds were breaking up and the promise of a golden winter sunset flickered through the gaps. We opted to end the day there just as I had a few days before, only this time in a different area below the dam where liquid water was abundant today. A short hike through the snow covered ground soon saw us setting up our tripods on a rocky outcrop and in no time at all capturing the beautiful light across the lake. It was a perfect end to the day and one we really enjoyed. The gallery below has captions to guide you along with us. Conditions were perfect for a milky way shot yesterday, with no cloud and cold clear skies over kananaskis I had to head out with the camera. I left home about 2pm and made my way to highway 40 where I stopped off at Barrier Lake to make a few images of the spindrift blowing over Mt Baldy, it was incredibly cold on exposed skin but I was well prepared for the temperatures today. I stopped again along highway 40 at Mt Kidd where the spindrift was irresistible and covered the towering monolith in fast moving clouds of snow lifted from the rock face. As I approached kananaskis lakes I could see snow blowing over Mt Sarrail ridge too so I headed up there first to make a couple of shots before finally making my way to the lower lake for sunset.
I really like the sunset shots even though there's no cloud to reflect the light they still worked out well, I struggled to choose between them so posted almost all of them. I walked a stretch of the bank making images here and there, then enjoyed a cuppa watching the very last of the light die away before heading up to the upper lake. At the upper lake I decided to do some steel wool burning during the blue hour to kill time waiting for it to be dark enough for the milky way. I really like some of those shots too as the yellow light works so well with the blue ambient light. Finally the night closed in and the 'dark sky site' lit up with a billion stars as the milky way materialised out of the darkness. I was able to complete my evening in kananaskis with some nice starlight images and make my way home along empty highways. I was home by 8.30 pm and checking my images like an excited kid, I'm pretty happy with the overall bunch. With temperatures at -10 and steady light snowfall today, the blue jay that visits the garden was making repeated trips to the feeder trying to steal a few peanuts from the 'squirrel circle'. He is alway a shy bird and flies away at the slightest movement inside the house but I set up a chair beside the window and stayed quite still until he got used to the idea. I put my 400mm lens on the 5DIV and shot a whole bunch of images of this lovely (but noisy) bird.
There were lots of other birds at the feeder too, but the gallery below is reserved for just a few of the images I made of this guy doing his best to raid the peanut circle. |
AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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The Shaman, West Texas
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